Tuesday, April 29, 2008

This is soul. Not Al Green soul. Not Isaac Hayes soul (but perhaps a bit closer to that). This is the soul of the black man. It is the soul of a student of history who is sick and tired of force-feeding and ready to spit back. This is the soul of a man tired of the system and using his art to reframe and correct it.

When it first came out in 1971, Eugene McDaniels’ vitriolic statement irked and ired many, including Vice President Spiro Agnew, who personally contacted Atlantic Records to demand that the album be shelved. Despite this high praise from such a high post, the album’s music and message has survived in the hearts and minds of music lovers (including The Beastie Boys, who sampled a piece of McDaniels’ wisdom on Ill Communication ) and has now been revived in the equally aware hands of Producer Joel Dorn.

Though the abum may be a grand departure from McDaniel’s earlier hit, "Compared To What," its provocative soothe continues to reverberate. Predicting the coming of acid jazz and even gangster rap, McDaniels covers both the topics of his time — from the horoscopic groove of "Lovin’ Man" to the androgynous murder of "Jagger the Dagger" — and of times past and still present in sharp-eyed chronicles like "Headless Heroes," "Supermarket Blues," the subtly bomb-bastic "Freedom Death Dance" and "The Parasite" (which may be dedicated to Native American artiast and activist Buffy St.Marie). Wrapping his sharp words in cozy key lines and absorbent rhythms, McDaniels tells it like it is and rarely shirks the truth. Though "Susan Jane" is a jangly Dylan-esque exercise in simple rhyme, it acts as a necessary break from McDaniels’ torrential attacks of conscience.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008 MEXICO CITY -- A press aide at the president's office has been dismissed following allegations that he took BlackBerrys belonging to U.S. officials at a summit in New Orleans, an official said Friday.

Rafael Quintero Curiel acknowledged picking up two of the telephone and e-mail devices at the summit of the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada this week, but said he thought they had been left behind and was trying to return them. A Mexican government spokeswoman said Quintero Curiel was dismissed from his year-old job coordinating logistics for reporters covering President Felipe Calderon's international trips. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to talk to the news media about the case. White House Press Secretary Dana Marie Perino said Thursday that a member of the Mexican delegation was involved in "the disappearance of a couple of BlackBerrys." She said she didn't know whether the phones contained sensitive information, but said they were recovered. She did not mention Quintero Curiel by name. It was not clear how many of the devices were taken or who they belonged to. In a letter sent to The Associated Press and local news media, Quintero Curiel said he picked up the phones thinking they had been forgotten, and intended to send them to their owners." Given that most of the delegates had left the hotel where the event was taking place, I picked up two cellular phones with the intention of returning them to their owners," he wrote. He said he had to rush to a closing ceremony and then to the airport, and ran out of time to return the phones, so he gave them to a driver with instructions to hand them over to desk clerks at the hotel. In the letter, he said U.S. Secret Service agents approached him at the airport asking him to return the BlackBerrys, but he said the agents thanked him for his help when he explained the incident. Participants at summits often are asked to leave their cell phones on a table outside meeting rooms to avoid distractions or as a security measure. David Gewirtz, an expert on e-mail security and author of the book "Where Have All The Emails Gone?" said Friday that the incident shows the vulnerability of U.S. data." The real simple issue is that what's inside the devices could be potentially enormously damaging," he said. "It ranges from simple things like home addresses and phone numbers ... up to things like plans for negotiations we might have with other countries."

While I can believe Rafael had no ill intentions, how in the hell could he pass off that kind of responsibility to his driver?

Friday, April 25, 2008

Between October 2007 and January 2008, two dozen researchers at IBM participated in an internal pilot program designed to investigate the possibility of migrating employees to the Mac platform. At the end of the trial, 86 percent of the testers asked to continue using their Macs, leading IBM to plan to expand the pilot to 100 users by the end of 2008.via EWEEK

Friday, April 18, 2008

The 48-year-old was the first celebrity to speak out against the religion, telling how his 12 years with the church damaged him and accusing Scientology of being “destructive” and a “rip-off”.

After Beghe’s criticism of the church made headlines yesterday, YouTube suspended the account of the prolific Scientology critic who posted the video, making the clip unavailable to viewers.

But the suspension has angered YouTube users who have thrown their weight behind Mark Bunker, who uses the name XenuTV1 on the site.

By this morning, 45 YouTube members had used their sign-ons to re-post Bunker’s interview with the Cane and CSI actor.

In the clip, Benghe said: “My experience personally, and what I’ve observed for myself, is that Scientology is destructive and a rip-off.”

"It’s very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological and mental, emotional health and evolution. I think it stunts your evolution.”

The church insists it brings its members “spiritual enlightenment” and it has helped the world progress towards “the eradication of its ills”, including drugs, crime, violence and intolerance.

One user, Vongoloid, uploaded the video with the message: “Actor Jason Beghe exposes... Scientology to Mark Bunker of Xenu TV. YouTube suspended Mark's account, XenuTV1, so I am putting this up for justice.”

“We take copyright issues very seriously. We prohibit users from uploading infringing material and we cooperate with copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content,” its policy states.

“YouTube reviews the content and removes it from the system within minutes if it violates our Terms of Use. This combined with our proprietary technology helps us to enforce the rules. We also disable the accounts of repeat offenders.”

It is not the first time YouTube and Scientology critics have clashed. After a video of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise speaking about Scientology was leaked to YouTube last year, the church raised copyright issues and the site removed the clip, angering its users.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

They patiently 'perch and wait' in the tree canopy above the coffee bushes, inverted and clutching a branch with their feet, sometimes for hours at a stretch. Their large, pointy ears listen intently for the sounds of insects chewing, crawling across leaves, or chirping. Then they swoop down and snatch the bug off the leaf or stem.

The sketchy black-and-white picture shows the Twelve Apostles drinking, dancing, and well, getting extremely friendly with each other. It certainly isn’t the version of Christ’s Last Supper that most people are familiar with…

Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka’s version of the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy was supposed to be one of the highlights of an exhibition at the Dommuseum, the museum of Vienna’s Roman Catholic cathedral. An initial favourable review by the local Catholic news agency didn’t seem to find anything wrong. But blink and it’s gone — thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, after the painting sparked criticism in Austria and as far away as the United States. Here’s a protest article in German (with 61 comments and an explicit video about the exhibition) and a comically bad machine translation into English.wonderfully profoundBabelfish Article with Angry Video (but you have to squint, my Lovelies)

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Wikinews has obtained 'Operating Thetan' (OT) documents of the Church of Scientology which were leaked via Wikileaks. Although some portions of the manual have been leaked previously, this is believed to be the first time the full unedited version has been leaked.

The file is a 612-page compilation of material written for Scientologists by L. Ron Hubbard, and contains instructions for the eight different Operating Thetan levels including 'clear' and OT8. Most of the documents have been retyped from their original sources. The file does, however, contain some scanned in Hubbard's own handwriting, which also bear his signature. The collection also contains bulletins by Hubbard written for individuals who have passed the according levels.

"A great many phenomena (strange things) can happen while doing these drills, if they are done honestly," Hubbard writes in regards to 'OT1.' Hubbard then goes on to explain in hand written notes, the 'drills' one must do in order to become 'OT1':

"One: Walk around and counts bodies until you have a cognition. Make a report saying how many you counted and your cognition. Two: Note several large and small female bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Three: Note several large and several small male bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Four: Final a tight packed crowd of people. Write it as a crowd and then as individuals until you have a cognition. Note it down. Do step over until you do."

Hubbard then goes on to explain OT2, but before he does so, he tells the Churches how to keep Scientology working. One way is to not divulge information on their "technology." Doing so, says Hubbard, would result in "the complete destruction of all our work."

via Disinfo

Read it while it's hot kids! Me? I've got more important stuff to read like learning about UI design and stuff, but hey I'm putting it out there.